The Bonasso family was like my second family when I was in high school in Enterprise. Large Italian Catholic family. It was one of those cool things about being an Army Brat. Diversity, before it was a thing. Col. Bonasso actually introduced me to Chianti.
Vinnie and I were great friends and graduated in the same class at Enterprise High School. His younger brother Phil and I became close after Vinnie embarked on a new adventure to the Air Force Academy and alas, I started college at the humble JuCo in Enterprise. The Bonasso family had a long history of Academy graduates: The Patriarch: Col. Bonasso, USMA, son Pete, USMA, son Vince, USAFA. Phil, the youngest, was a different story. He became part of the Lord’s Army.
Anyway, the year after Vinny left for the AF Academy, Phil asked me to bring my guitar to a prayer group one night at the small Catholic Parish in Enterprise. The ladies that attended this group would enjoy singing a few choruses and I was glad to oblige. Long story short, the spiritual journey that started in a small Baptist church in Columbus GA in 1965 was renewed though this group. A few of my friends at Enterprise Jr. College even called me a Jesus Freak. It bothered me then. In 2020, I don’t give two dead flies.
Miss Eileen Faulk was a member of this prayer group. Coke bottle glasses, no teeth, coarse gray hair flying in every direction on the compass, brown stretchy pants, Earth Shoes, and a heart of gold. She asked Phil and me and my guitar to come to her Jail Ministry in Dothan, a neighboring town. With great trepidation, we agreed. She told us that these boys needed ‘rehabilitation’.
The guys at the jail were in overcrowded, swampy conditions. It smelled of backed up toilets. Some of the cells were large with dirty mattresses with striped ticking strewn across the floor. The bars that separated us were chipped in gray, green, and black, depending on the decade of paint that was available. One young boy navigated around the mattresses with an inflated lunch sack tied with a piece of string. He pulled it gently around the crowded cell and stopped to pet it occasionally. Who knows? Was he severely mentally ill or was he malingering? My 19 year old self didn’t have the ability to even analyze that question. It just seemed horrifying.
Miss Eileen took what little income she had and bought the men snacks and toiletries. Phil and I discovered they loved singing ‘Down by the Riverside’. I’d walk up and down the cells with my guitar and we would all sing together in several different keys. My guitar and the voices echoed throughout the jail. Phil made up a verse they always wanted to sing: “I’m gonna put on my blue suede shoes...down by the river side”. They laughed, clapped, and hollered, “PLAY THAT ONE AGAIN!’ I was scared to death and delighted at the same time.
At the end of our ‘church service’, Miss Eileen walked up and down the jail cells reciting some Catholic prayer that was foreign to my Baptist ears and threw holy water that was blessed by a Priest all over the inmates. 8:30 PM, June in Dothan, Alabama, and even my guitar was perspiring. Miss Eileen wore her sweat mustache well as she doused the Houston Co Jail inmates.
One night, I remember hearing an inmate hiss, “What the hell is that old bitch doing?” The reply was quick and vicious from several other inmates:
“SHUT UP, YOU M-F FOOL. SHE LOVES US.”
So this was my idea of Rehabilitation. I knew I was running out of time at Enterprise Jr College and I needed to make a transfer decision soon. Auburn’s catalog featured a program in Rehabilitation. I decided I would transfer to AU and major in Rehabilitation. Easy peasy.
I arrived in the fall of 1976 and met with my advisor, Dr. Walt Jarecke. He was an older gentleman, kind and approachable. (For two years, he called me ‘Bob’ —my first name is Robert—and I never corrected him. Living with a last name like ‘Vosel’ you just give up.)
Dr. Jarecke explained to me that Auburn’s Rehabilitation program was not really about prison rehabilitation, but working with people with disabilities and assisting them in preparing for and finding jobs. I replied, “That sounds cool to me.” (It was the 70’s.)
I spent 40 years doing what I was called to do. I continue as a volunteer with my therapy dogs. Miss Eileen and the Houston Co. Jail planted that seed long ago. It was real and organic. And I honor her with this story. I’d take a splash of that holy water any day. She loved us.
